Don't be fooled by a tiny drop in EU migration figures

THE metropolitan political establishment is crowing with self-satisfaction.

Bulgarian migrants arriving at Sofia bus station to leave for other countries [REX]

The reason for this orgy of self-congratulation is the release of official new immigration figures which show a tiny recent drop in the number of Bulgarians and Romanians settling here.

According to the Labour Force Survey, 140,000 people from those two eastern European countries were living in Britain during the first three months of this year, a fall of 4,000 compared to the last quarter of 2013.

The reduction has prompted so much gloating in fashionable Left-wing circles because there had been predictions that the numbers coming here would rise dramatically when the EU lifted all restrictions on movement from Bulgaria and Romania at the beginning of the year.

Members of the pro-immigration brigade now try to outdo each other in sneering at their opponents. The figures "give the lie to Ukip scaremongering", declare the Lib Dems, whose enthusiasm both for the EU and mass immigration remains unabated despite deepening unpopularity.

But all this preening over a single statistic shows the complete self-delusion of the metropolitan elite

The "supposed flood" has turned out "to be little more than a trickle," says Labour's Keith Vaz, Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee. One Romanian activist even demanded "an apology" from anti-EU campaigners, claiming that they had created a combustible atmosphere where "we have seen petrol bomb attacks. We have seen pipe bomb attacks". Really? That language sounds far more alarmist than anything Ukip have come up with recently.

But all this preening over a single statistic shows the complete self-delusion of the metropolitan elite. They are trying to put an absurdly favourable spin on statistics that actually contradict their case.

The reality is that immigration remains out of control, our borders as porous as ever. Far from declining, the long-term influx of migrants from Bulgaria and Romania is on the rise.

As the Labour Force Survey demonstrates, the total of 140,000 Bulgarians and Romanians living here represents an increase of almost 30,000 on the same period in 2013. Compared to the first quarter of 2012, the number has gone up by 44 per cent.

When the independent think tank Migration Watch forecast an annual influx to Britain of 50,000 over each of the next five years, it was accused of lurid exaggeration. But these new figures are exactly in line with that prediction.

Any liberal complacency should be blown apart by a look at the wider statistics on immigration beyond merely Bulgaria and Romania. So the number of workers from all EU countries in Britain has risen by no less than 10.6 per cent in the past year, reaching 1.747 million, while the total of non-UK workers currently stands at an incredible 4.544 million.

That puts all the hollow liberal celebrations of a 4,000 drop into perspective. There can be no dispute that we are living through a social revolution transforming the very fabric of Britain, even though the electorate never voted for this upheaval.

The scale of the change would have been unthinkable to previous generations. In 1940 there were just 238,000 foreign nationals living in Britain, less than half the current influx every single year.

The idea that mass immigration has been stemmed at all is absurd, as can be seen in tremendous pressure on our civic infrastructure.

It is due to continuing soaring immigration that our urban primary schools are packed, that hospital A&E units are grossly overstretched and that appointments for GPs have become such a struggle.

Mass immigration also helps to explain why so many British people feel threatened by crime. More than 13 per cent of the jail population are foreigners, while according to the Metropolitan Police almost one third of all Romanians living in London have been arrested in the past five years.

The diversity cheerleaders tell us that mass immigration is vital to our economy, since foreigners supposedly do the work that too many British people won't.

This is just more empty propaganda. In fact plenty of migrants come here to sponge off our lavish welfare system. At present there are more than 405,000 non-UK nationals of working age who live here and claim benefits, with no fewer than 106,000 of them from EU countries.

AMONG the migrant freeloaders is the notorious Firuta Vasile, a Big Issue seller from Romania who in 2012 took a successful legal action to ensure that she was paid £28,000 a year in welfare benefits. One study found that one third of Big Issue sellers are from Romania, some using the magazine as a ruse to gain self-employed status and access to social security.

It is remarkable that Left-wingers are such supporters of mass immigration given that it is the British working class that has suffered most from the change. The wealthy might benefit from foreign nannies and plumbers but too many British find their jobs taken and their living standards driven down by cheap, imported labour.

That is precisely why Labour is haemorrhaging support to Ukip, the one major party promising a crackdown on immigration.

As Ukip argues, we can only regain control of our borders and put the needs of the British public first if we leave the EU. Under the rule of Brussels, mass immigration will continue at its present destructive level.